According to Deadline, Fox 2000 has tapped Lion screenwriter Luke Davies to adapt Paulette Jiles’ novel News of the World as a star vehicle for Tom Hanks, who is producing alongside Gary Goetzman and Gail Mutrux (The Danish Girl).
News of the World takes place in 1870 and revolves “around a road trip through the untamed West taken by unlikely traveling partners. On the one hand is Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a Texan who travels from town to town to read the news to locals who would otherwise not know what is going on in the world. While Kidd is sparked up by spreading the word of the passage of the 15th Amendment that gave voting rights to all men, he agrees to escort a 10-year-old white girl to her aunt and uncle in San Antonio after she was rescued from the Kiowa Indian tribe that kidnapped her and killed her family four years earlier. His traveling partner is an ornery youngster who didn’t want to be rescued and brought to her relatives. The two form a bond through their harrowing adventure that includes revelations for Kidd. While he’s educated and worldly, he can see when he passes through major cities that newspapers are becoming widely available, and realizes he will soon be a relic of another time.”
Hanks is currently gearing up to reunite with director Steven Spielberg for a drama based upon The Pentagon Papers, where he’ll star alongside Meryl Streep. He is also attached to the World War II thriller Submarine, for which he also penned the screenplay.
